Education in Sierra Leone, SDG4 & Monitoring with ICT
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Data Collecting and Monitoring Progress on Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals The Purpose of this policy brief is to inform NCSP during their decision-making, on options for collecting data & monitoring progress on Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4 education) in Sierra Leone & overcoming the major digital divides that exist in Sierra Leone. This brief aims to assist the NCSP committee to empower itself to re-open the discourse on the SDG4 targets and indicators, which were revised by the government of Sierra Leone (GoSL), It also aims to empower them to lobby donors and the GoSL and to facilitate stakeholders’ to conduct their own bottom-up identification of targets and indicators that more closely match the educational and welfare needs of students and are more likely to result in fulfilment of the SDG4.
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Education in Sierra Leone, SDG4 & Monitoring with ICT
- 1. POLICY BRIEF FOR (HYPOTHETICAL) NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF SCHOOL PARTNERS (NCSP) Data Collecting and Monitoring Progress on Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals EDUCATION IN SIERRA LEONE, SDG4 & MONITORING WITH ICT Sahr O Fasuluku sahrfas@yahoo.co.uk
- 2. THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF SCHOOL PARTNERS 1. Challenge the education sector’s assumption that high learning quality, welfare & impact is achieved by infrastructure, materials, staff & attendance alone. 2. Promote community action and empowerment so communities can influence and change education strategy so it focuses on; standards & quality of educational delivery & welfare capacity building & empowerment of multi- stakeholder school partnerships
- 3. THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN SIERRA LEONE Proportion who passed the minimum 4 subjects in Basic Education Certificate Exam (BECE) 47% Proportion who passed BECE Maths 23% Proportion who failed to obtain a single credit in Senior Secondary Certificate Exam (WASSCE) 40% Drop in English success rate between 2007-10 17% to 14% Junior secondary results hardly improved between 2005- 2013, senior secondary results were far behind other West African Examinations Council (WAEC) countries Poor primary English & maths teaching leads to inability of students in secondary school to understand other subjects
- 4. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL4 INDICATING SUCCESS & BASELINES SDG 4.1: By 2030 all children complete free, equitable & quality education leading to relevant & effective learning outcomes. Indicator: Proportion achieving minimum proficiency in reading & maths. GoSL revised SDG4: Inclusive, equitable quality education & promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. GoSL indicators & baselines: Girls completing primary 65%, boys 67%. Girls completing senior secondary 15%, boys 22%. Primary enrolment (n/a), secondary enrolment 30%, pre-primary 8%, disabled (n/a). Girl-boy ratio primary 1, senior secondary 0.8.
- 5. OPTIONS FOR COLLECTING DATA AND MONITORING
- 6. MONITORING SDG4 PROGRESS:- STORIES OR NUMBERS? Quantitative data collection uses questionnaires, school & MEST records, reports, headcounts, crowd-sourcing. Data is coded into numbers, computers find patterns & relationships & show contributions to SDG4. Qualitative data collection can include discussions, group exercises, interviews, crowdsourcing, posters, photos, maps, video, problem trees, sms messages. It’s difficult to codify but meaning can be decided by participants, by facilitators, by NCSP or by MEST. Mixing quantitative and qualitative data gives clearer meanings and helps analysis.
- 7. TOP DOWN MONITORING Modernist top-down-appearing SDG4 indicators come from years of consultation in many countries & local communities. However, GoSL line ministries & education experts edited SDG4, may have decided monitoring capacity & set data management requirements. It is difficult to see how GoSL SDG4 indicators will contribute to progress on the Global SDG4. Requires MEST to practise reflexivity & critically reflect on the effect of their relationships & actions in forming, framing & sharing monitoring data
- 8. PARTICIPATORY MONITORING Participatory exercises; bring together diverse participants; schools, students, communities, teachers, NGO’s, CBO’s and MEST who construct their own SDG4 targets, indicators and/or required data, monitoring and evaluation system, trigger Civil Society Organisations’ lobbying action & crowdsource, analyse & visualise data collected, making it useful, understandable & accessible to all. ‘Structuralists’ take into account social structures & power relations that influence participants’ decisions. Time, resources, unpredictability & momentum mean starting from global SDG4 indicators, not from scratch
- 9. USING ICT TO COLLECT DATA AND MONITOR SDG4
- 10. THE STATE OF ICT IN SIERRA LEONE Mobiles, WhatsApp & radio are most popular. Mobile signals are intermittent 3G in some cities, erratic during May-September rains and none in 35% of Sierra Leone. Many have 2 or 3 sims, 89.5 mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. Internet use is 11.8% & mobile-broadband subscriptions are15%. Freetown’s international fibre-optic cable improved bandwidth, reduced broadband price but wasn’t rolled out nationwide. Laptops & PC’s are used by literate people for email or word-processing. A minority know basic spreadsheets. Laptops & tablets with dongles are good for rural data gathering due to lack of electricity.
- 11. OPTIONS FOR DATA COLLECTION With training & motivation, SDG4 statistics like school assessments, completion, numbers of girls, WAEC results & quality ratings can be sent in spreadsheets on tablets and laptops with dongles or saved on micro SD cards and sent using mobile email or in apps. Mobiles can take and send low resolution WhatsApp photos of handwritten responses, documents, posters, work in progress, videos of classroom observations, community brainstorming sessions & audio messages. Photo reduction apps avoid large data bills. Word files and higher quality media can use the same ICT as spreadsheets.
- 12. COUNT THE DIGITAL DIVIDES Sandoh chiefdom, Kono District July 2017
- 13. POSSIBILITIES FOR REAL TIME SDG4 DATA (1) A mobile SDG4 App allows students to rank on a scale or with a yes /no, their perceptions of or numbers of incidents. Reports and data sent by internet are fed into an online database and show mapping in real time. 4.5.1 students and teachers use SDG4 app to state number of gender /indigenous/ financial status related incidents noticed or heard about in school per week, seriousness categories chosen
- 14. POSSIBILITIES FOR REAL TIME SDG4 DATA (2) 4.3.1 School and college registry and attendance databases connect to online databases several times per day and automatically upload updates. Students and parents use sdg4 app to state if affordable. 4.6.1 School assessments are entered by teachers once a day into database or on school phone app. 4.4.1 number and frequency of young Pc users at pc café’s showing skills is entered by café staff 4.7.1 A school level assessment checklist for global citizenship and sustainable development mainstreaming criteria by app when each is satisfied.
- 15. RECOMMENDATIONS (1) First and foremost: Empower Sierra Leonean Civil Society Organisations (CSO’s) to link real, felt, local problems on the ground, to quality and to more-relevant SDG4 indicators. For Example: SDG indicator 4.1.1 CSO’s may decide this is a more relevant learning outcome; Proportion of children achieving “minimum proficiency level in (i) reading and (ii) mathematics” Proportion of children achieving grade-expected level or higher in; i. English as an Additional Language (EAL) at “Competent”, ii. mathematics, and iii. three other subjects”
- 16. HOW? RECOMMENDATIONS (2) (Adapted from Bimbe (2015 ) Institute of Dev Studies) 1. OVER-ARCHING PRINCIPLES apply to all ICT activities- 1. Removal of the digital divide. Access to relevant effective ICT for all. Knowledge-creation and contribution by all. Access to knowledge for all. 2. Lobby GoSL to CREATE THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT by- Implementing recommendations of ‘Walk the Talk’ Sierra Leone CSO Position Paper on SDG Implementation 2016. Ensuring public and CSO access to information and protecting fundamental freedoms (SDG16). Facilitating a local-level redesign of SDG4 indicators so they reflect more relevant learning outcomes.
- 17. RECOMMENDATIONS (3) 3. HUMAN CAPACITY BUILDING will be necessary – ICT skills investment in people at all levels in all chiefdoms to bridge the digital skills divide and open up many uses of ICT, knowledge flows, accessible sharing and learning. 4. The RIGHT INFRASTRUCTURE AND TOOLS – GoSL and development agencies must coordinate investments into ICT interactivity, searchability, access & usefulness, as part of Financing for Development. ICT crowdsourcing facilities will be essential for multi- stakeholder participation in knowledge creation, sharing, monitoring, sustainable development and transparency.
- 18. PARTING MESSAGE Clarke (2013): Belief in ICT ‘silver bullets’ fails to understand the nature of poverty, access to information, platforms for real mobilisation and marginalisation of women The biggest two things we lack in Sierra Leone are the self-confidence to act together and stand up to power, for social justice, without feeling we are committing a crime. The other is the self- confidence to make way for others, so they can act for the greater good.
- 19. REFERENCES (UNICEF (2013) Sierra Leone Education Status Report. UNESCO) http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002260/226039e.pdf) accessed 16 February 2017 UN (2015) The Sustainable Development Goals http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/ UNICEF (2013) Sierra Leone Education Status Report. UNESCO Government of Sierra Leone (2016) Advanced Draft Report On Adaptation Of The Goals In Sierra Leone FREIRE P (1968) Pedagogy of the Oppressed Fasuluku S (2016) Kono Conference 2016 Event Wrap Up Report https://sahrfasuluku.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/event-wrap-up-report-of-the-kono- conference-2016-held-at-soas-university-of-london-28th-29th-july/ accessed 16/7/2017 Civil Society Organisations (2016) Position Paper on SDG Implementation in: Government of Sierra Leone (2016) Advanced Draft Report On Adaptation Of The Goals In Sierra Leone Bimbe (2015) Knowledge Sharing and Development in a Digital age Institute of Development Studies Chambers, R. (2013) Empowerment and Facilitation. [Video]. Clarke (2013) Clarke (2013) ICT 4 the MDGs? A Perspective on lCTs' Role in Addressing Urban Poverty in the Context of the Millennium Development Goals
Editor's Notes
- The Purpose of this policy brief is to inform NCSP during their decision-making, on options for collecting data & monitoring progress on Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4 education) in Sierra Leone & overcoming the major digital divides that exist in Sierra Leone. This brief aims to assist the NCSP committee to empower itself to re-open the discourse on the SDG4 targets and indicators, which were revised by the government of Sierra Leone (GoSL), It also aims to empower them to lobby donors and the GoSL and to facilitate stakeholders’ to conduct their own bottom-up identification of targets and indicators that more closely match the educational and welfare needs of students and are more likely to result in fulfilment of the SDG4.
- The NCSP is a hypothetical national organisation of school partners that could exist in Sierra Leone. The NCSP has two objectives: 1. To challenge the education sector’s assumption that high learning quality, welfare & impact is achieved by infrastructure, materials, staff & attendance alone. 2. To promote community action and empowerment so communities can influence and change education strategy so it focuses on; standards & quality of educational delivery & welfare capacity building & empowerment of multi-stakeholder school partnerships Members of the NCSP are regional representatives from: school development committees, governors and proprietors, students unions, Community Based Organisations (CBO’s), Community Parent Teachers Associations (CTA’s), local and Diaspora alumni and old teachers’ associations, local and international NGO’s, local councils, and the Ministry of Education Science and Technology (MEST).
- Junior secondary results hardly improved between 2005-2013, senior secondary results were far behind other West African Examinations Council (WAEC) countries Poor primary school English & maths leads to inability of students in secondary school to understand their other subjects. The teachers’ failure to understand and deliver the full syllabus to students, plus the absence of remedial classes to urgently correct poor English and maths, all contribute to poor performance. Only 47% passed the minimum 4 subjects at the end of junior secondary school exam (year 3) Only 23% passed maths A massive 40% of senior secondary school students (year 7 of secondary) failed to achieve a single credit in WASSCE English success actually dropped between 2007 and 2010 (Source: UNICEF (2013) Sierra Leone Education Status Report. UNESCO) . Students and teachers in Sierra Leone face severe poverty, gender and language barriers to education. A key point is the focus of funders government and individuals trying to help. Education-funding is overwhelmingly directed to staffing, infrastructure and materials with limited funding to address barriers to education or chronic problems with teaching and learning. The emphasis of donors and government tends to focus on attendance and completion as if their only responsibility is to get kids in school and education quality will tke care of itself. Even UNICEF (2013) monitoring indicators emphasised ‘school participation’ (14 disaggregated categories), ‘literacy’ and ‘mobile phone/internet usage. This shows a lack of appreciation by government of the importnce of good teaching and perhaps an iresponsible attitude by donors who simply want to tick the box that shows high attendance figure but don’t wnt to commit to investing in excellent teachers. For teachers who wish to improve, fees for basic in service teacher training (INSETT) are often beyond their means. I also failed to find evidence of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) provision.
- The Global SDG4 contains 10 targets each with detailed indicators. For example; SDG 4.1 states that: By 2030 all children should complete free, equitable & quality education leading to relevant & effective learning outcomes. Their indicator of success is the proportion achieving minimum proficiency in reading & maths. So, this is what anyone who wants to deliver on 4.1 should measure, when they are monitoring. Last year (2016) the government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) published its ‘Sierra Leone Sustainable Development Goals Adaptation Report’. In this report it proposed to the UN that Sierra Leone should have only 1 single SDG4 target. Its proposed target was: “Inclusive, equitable quality education & promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Thus discarding most of the UN’s SDG4 targets. It proposed 10 indicators of this single target; percentage of girls and boys completing primary school. Girls & boys completing senior secondary. Primary enrolment , secondary enrolment, pre-primary enrolment, disabled enrolment. Girl-boy-ratio primary & senior secondary. Even increasing these starting points, from their current levels to 100% would not have a major impact on the quality of education, attainment or wellbeing experienced by students. These indicators would not show that an “Inclusive, equitable quality education & promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” had been achieved, let alone that the original SDG4 targets had been reached. One bit of evidence of this is that current students who are do satisfy the requirement for enrolment, attendance and completion of 14 years of education are doing dismally. Sierra Leone’s edited SDG4 removed most of the targets and indicators that would show progress in areas of education and welfare. This follows the education sector’s and donors’ trend to focus on infrastructure, staff, attendance and completion, and to ignore quality, educational achievement and wellbeing when setting its targets. This may explain Sierra Leones dismal performance in education, behind most other WAEC countries and the rest of the world. Suggesting relevant ways to collect data and monitor progress is difficult when initial targets and indicators of impact are absent. Is the committee prepared to apply double-loop-learning, and empower stakeholders to identify their priority targets and indicators, or campaign for the Global targets and indicators to be replaced?
- Before moving on to consider alternative targets and indicators of success that may give us a better picture of our progress towards SDG4 and may encourage teachers and schools to focus their efforts on activities that create better quality of teaching learning and attainment, lets look at some of the different ways of collecting information about progress. This helps us to re-think assumptions we may have.
- Data may be collected by measuring things in numbers, this is quantitative data. Ways of collecting Quantitative data are usually objective and detached and include; questionnaires, school records, MEST records, reports, headcounts, crowd-sourcing. Data is coded into numbers, computers find patterns & relationships & can give an idea of how much has been contributed to achieving SDG4 and how much progress has been made. Choosing indicators of progress to measure, gives us an idea of how well things are working. Eg the number of students getting 4 or more credits in WASSCE gives an idea of how well schools are doing in many areas of school life; learning quality, students ability to overcome barriers, etc. To get deeper understanding of issues we collect qualitative data and analyse it carefully. These are stories and experiences from students, teachers, schools and communities, such as; what students understand after lessons, or how girls are treated. Ways of collecting qualitative data are usually more subjective and collectors may be involved with the communities and with their sustainable development activities. Methods can include taking notes of discussions, group exercises, interviews with open ended questions, crowdsourcing, posters, photos, maps, video, problem trees, sms messages. It’s difficult to codify but meaning can be decided by participants, by facilitators, by NCSP or by MEST. Mixing both methods has been shown to give a combination of accuracy and clearer meanings, and helps data analysis.
- Modernists often prefer using objective, detached methods to set top-down targets, indicators, monitoring and data collection. They believe only experts and leaders, who remain detached and objective from on high, have the correct answers. They do not consider asking the people most affected (the beneficiaries) as they don’t think these people know what is happening, what it means and what is in their best interest. They believe beneficiaries need to be told and have solutions passed down to them. In Sierra Leone’s case the GoSL, Government line ministries & education experts will have edited SDG4. It is questionable how much they spoke to or involved student beneficiaries, schools or local communities, or whether they had any hand in the decision making process. GoSL would have analysed their own education-sector delivery & monitoring capacity & will have set their own data-management requirements. They will have decided what is important and set their targets and indicators to match what they felt was important. In this case they felt being at school and finishing school was most important. Any monitoring they conduct would be designed to answer the questions they think are important (ie being at school and finishing school) which they believed would achieve “Inclusive, equitable quality education & promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”; their own version of SDG4. If they have chosen bad indicators, this will affect what data they choose to collect. Programme implementers will try to verify only those indicators sent from above. They will spend most of their efforts on activities to ensure these indicators are satisfied. Since they are not aiming to satisfy the international SDG4 they are highly unlikely to fulfil them. This means they will fail to influence effective learning outcomes. It is difficult to see how GoSL SDG4 indicators will contribute to progress on the Global SDG4. The GoSL’s current exercise of power over the choice and significance of data removes the means and choice of sustainable development from beneficiaries such as Sierra Leone’s schools, students, teachers and communities. In contrast, the global SDG4 indicators while appearing top-down, actually come from years of consultations with communities, educators, civil society and governments, in 100 countries, and with 7 million citizens on websites. To operate with similar principles would require MEST to change its practises towards more reflexivity & critically reflect on the effect of their relationships & actions in forming data management strategy, framing & sharing monitoring data.
- Participatory exercises; bring together diverse participants; schools, students, communities, teachers, NGO’s, CBO’s and MEST who construct their own SDG4 targets, indicators and/or required data, monitoring and evaluation system, trigger Civil Society Organisations’ lobbying action & crowdsource, analyse & visualise data collected, making it useful, understandable & accessible to all. ‘Structuralists’ take into account social structures & power relations that influence participants’ decisions. Although participatory initiatives are common in Sierra Leone, policy and practice is not dominated by discursive practice. Many consultations are token, influenced by power holders’ expectations, accepted practices and lack of self confidence. Real grassroots empowerment is often viewed as a threat. CSO’s are aware of this. There is much evidence that shows development programmes are more likely to succeed if designed, run and monitored by affected communities. When communities reflect on their development and take action it’s called ‘praxis’. It is empowering and improves the link between their real needs and high level SDG4 aspirations, but facilitating this will require some courage by the NCSP. Although a participatory approach to discover targets and indicators that will ensure good educational outcomes and ensure fulfillment of the SDG’s, time, resources, unpredictability & current SDG momentum mean starting from scratch may not be practicable. Te alternatvie ould be to start from global SDG4 indicators.
- At the 2016 Kono Conference, ICT suggestions for development were; group sms, emails, podcasts, WhatsApp, listserve, Twitter, blogs, Facebook, Instagram. However, low bandwidth and high data prices (£1/50Mb) deter people from using these except in Freetown’s internet cafés. People often share data on microSD cards, which can plug into laptops. SMS is not widely used. New legislation recently lifted the ban on voice-over-internet apps like KakaoTalk. The poor, uneducated and remote have no phones, phones without internet or don’t know how to use data services. They are unlikely to travel to use ICT. Both women and men use phones without stigma.
- Options for data collection With training & motivation, SDG4 statistics like school assessments, completion, numbers of girls, WAEC results & quality ratings can be sent in spreadsheets on tablets and laptops with dongles or saved on micro SD cards and sent using mobile email or in apps. Mobiles can take and send low resolution WhatsApp photos of handwritten responses, documents, posters, work in progress, videos of classroom observations, community brainstorming sessions & audio messages. Photo reduction apps avoid large data bills. Word files and higher quality media can use the same ICT as spreadsheets. Because photographed text is not readable or searchable this removes access when stored. To be useful, these photos require Optical Character Recognition Software at the receiving end, with detailed human checking for errors, or manually transcribing the text.
- This July, Jimissa and Mondeh, local teachers with NGO experience, mobiles, WhatsApp and email, from their village with its mobile mast, slow data and erratic signal deteriorated in rainy season; travelled by motorbike and canoe to a remote community with no signal, to interview farmers. Days later they returned with 63 A4 pages. For them scanning would mean 35 jarring muddy miles to Koidu, Le7000 per page, 2-3 pages per email sent in an internet cafe. Instead, they decided to photo and send by WhatsApp. Starting around 3pm, photos sluggishly uploaded …………. and finished arriving in London at 4.30am.
- A mobile SDG4 App allows students to rank on a scale or with a yes /no, their perceptions of or numbers of incidents. Reports and data sent by internet are fed into an online database and show mapping in real time. 4.5.1 students and teachers use SDG4 app to state number of gender /indigenous/ financial status related incidents noticed or heard about in school per week, seriousness categories chosen
- 4.3.1 School and college registry and attendance databases connect to online databases several times per day and automatically upload updates. Students and parents use sdg4 app to state if affordable. 4.6.1 School assessments are entered by teachers once a day into database or on school phone app. 4.4.1 number and frequency of young Pc users at pc café’s showing skills is entered by café staff 4.7.1 A school level assessment checklist for global citizenship and sustainable development mainstreaming criteria by app when each is satisfied
- The SL SDG targets and indicators as they stand are disconnected from effective education and welfare outcomes on the ground. They need to be re-linked using cross-sectoral strategies across several SDG’s, to remove social and economic barriers and increase quality of education and welfare. SDGs 5, 10, 16 and 17 provide the guidance needed to create an enabling environment for full civil society participation. First and foremost: Empower Sierra Leonean Civil Society Organisations (CSO’s) to link real, felt, local problems on the ground, to quality and to more-relevant SDG4 indicators. For Example: SDG indicator 4.1.1; Proportion of children achieving “minimum proficiency level in (i) reading and (ii) mathematics” CSO’s may decide this is a more relevant learning outcome; Proportion of children achieving grade-expected level or higher in; English as an Additional Language (EAL) at “Competent”, mathematics, and three other subjects”
- OVER-ARCHING PRINCIPLES apply to all ICT activities- Removal of the digital divide. Access to relevant effective ICT for all. Knowledge-creation and contribution by all. Access to knowledge for all. 1a. These must involve: Reduction of inequality. Investing, capacity-building, empowering and including all in policymaking, decisionmaking and full participation in their sustainable development (SDG10) including women (SDG5) and other marginalised groups. Lobby GoSL to CREATE THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT by- Implementing recommendations of ‘Walk the Talk’ Sierra Leone CSO Position Paper on SDG Implementation 2016. Ensuring public and CSO access to information and protecting fundamental freedoms (SDG16). Facilitating a local-level redesign of SDG4 indicators so they reflect more relevant learning outcomes. 2a. Enable CSO’s and communities to Identify Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats to fulfilment of SDG4 including; dominance by powerful stakeholders, lack of self confidence, women’s double burden, partnerships in other countries, and obligations to support community capacity building (SDG17). Full genuinely empowering collaboration by GoSL and all stakeholders to improve knowledge sharing infrastructure and remove the silo culture endemic in Sierra Leone and among development agencies.
- HUMAN CAPACITY BUILDING will be necessary – ICT skills investment in people at all levels in all chiefdoms to bridge the digital skills divide and open up many uses of ICT, knowledge flows, accessible sharing and learning. 3a. Major investment and coordination of knowledge intermediaries including librarians, webdesigners, schools, colleges, CSO’s, NGO’s, to ensure knowledge flows in many directions from and to all levels of society and adds to openly accessible national and African knowledge bases The RIGHT INFRASTRUCTURE AND TOOLS – GoSL and development agencies must coordinate investments into ICT interactivity, searchability, access & usefulness, as part of Financing for Development. ICT crowdsourcing facilities will be essential for multi-stakeholder participation in knowledge creation, sharing, monitoring, sustainable development and transparency. 4a. NCSP must vigorously push for significant upgrades and distribution of masts to achieve 100% 3G mobile broadband coverage and high bandwidth, lobby for regulation to oblige service providers to share their transmitters and allow full roaming at no extra cost and protect privacy, demand significantly lower costs of data, local and international calls and sms.
- Clarke (2013): Belief in ICT ‘silver bullets’ fails to understand the nature of poverty, access to information, platforms for real mobilisation and marginalisation of women The biggest two things we lack in Sierra Leone are the self-confidence to act together and stand up to power, for social justice, without feeling we are committing a crime. The other is the self-confidence to make way for others, so they can act for the greater good. In choosing the relative weights of this presentation, you have the power to take action, liberate, participate, mobilise. Chambers says; “If someone has power to do something, then they have power to empower”, you may require power within – this is self confidence; Empowerment is the self image of whether or not you can or should, for example, challenge authority or the status quo. I leave you with Praxis;reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it, it cannot be told, it must be constructed by the oppressed and the knowledge produced must lead to action. Freire (1968)
- To find out more here are some useful references used to inform this brief.